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I took the plunge this week and started The Dark Tower series with The Gunslinger. I'm liking it so far. Everyone I've talked to about the books has told me the first one isn't that good, but to stick with it as the later books are fantastic. I'm enjoying the first one though. If they only get better, then I guess I'm in for a treat.

"What were we talking about? Pegasuses, pegasii, that's horses with wings. This motherf*cker got a sword that talks to him. Motherf*cker live in places that don't exist, it comes with a map. My God."

Not sure if I mentioned it, but read the first book of Malazan the other week. Very fun universe and I like the concepts of faith and the like, but holy crap was it confusing. If I ever return to the series, I will probably keep the wiki on my phone/tablet while I read so that I can look up details.

Why would I return to a series that confused me so because of the author's policy of "I told you in an offhand comment 500 pages ago, you should remember this"? Don't I have higher standards and expect authors to respect my time more? Well, not realy. But more importantly, it is because of THIShttp://www.amazon.com/The-Malazan-Em...dp/B00HL0MA3W/

That is a ~20 MB ebook. It makes me immensely horny in my pants on principle alone...

Still gonna hold out for a while though because there are a lot of books I am interested in coming up and I suspect the TOC will be broken horribly in that book. And it may make my kindle explode...

That being said, I finished up Snow Crash the other night. Good book, but I feel it hasn't aged as well as other cyberpunk works. The concepts it puts forward are still a great read and I recommend it for anyone, but tech-wise it is kind of like watching one of the less painful episodes of NCIS. It gets a LOT wrong and takes a Hackers-esque approach to computers (well, Hackers takes a Snow Crash-esque approach, but shut your face :p). I fully acknowledge that most of this is my own problem and isn't a flaw of the book, but it just kept annoying me that apparently any form of programming is "hacking" and that using proper software engineering techniques is tantamount to mind control by the government.

And currently reading Blood Song by Anthony Ryan. Fun fact: After finishing up Snow Crash I started my usual skimming of my Good Reads "to-read" list (135 books and growing!) and skimmed the book summary thingie. Seemed interesting, so started going down the list of user reviews to see if there were any glaring issues. Saw one by a user named "Felicia", thought the picture looked familiar, realized it was Felicia Day. Holy crap is her review shitty :p

But decided to give it a shot anyway, and so far I like it. A few interesting concepts and I like the structure (basically a condemned man telling the story of how he became Hope Killer), but I already see a lot of the plot twists coming from a mile away.

Originally Posted by Tikey

Now you'll join us in The Game of Waiting for the Next Book.

Heh, allegedly his editor said that she expects to get an almost complete draft this year. So it looks like Martin's fears of the Fanfic of TV overtaking him have spurred him on to Sandersonian feats of writing.

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Further to some association with the TV show True detective I've started reading 'The King in Yellow' by Robert W Chambers which is a series of inter-related short stories that tie back to this otherworldly play that seemingly drives any who read it insane ('The king in yellow' of the title). Chambers was seemingly a huge influence on Lovecraft, and it's clear to see how based on what I've read so far.

Originally Posted by gundato

Heh, allegedly his editor said that she expects to get an almost complete draft this year. So it looks like Martin's fears of the Fanfic of TV overtaking him have spurred him on to Sandersonian feats of writing.

TV budgetary issues alone are going to pretty much entail that the events of Crows & Dragons get compressed and amalgamated to a considerable degree. I wouldn't be surprised to see the whole sprawl compressed into a single season given considerable tracts of both books are pretty much unfilmable and largely without significance. I think it's pretty much a given that the show is going to diverge from the book narrative substantially moving forward and I wouldn't be surprised to see the show runners press to wrap the series up by season 6 or 7 simply because of the logistics of production, maintaining viewer interest as well as retaining the large cast of actors.

Also Crows has about 3 episodes worth of story in it but I can imagine dance taking about a season or a season and a half to tell so george has about three years to finish it up which I dont think is going to happen.

TV budgetary issues alone are going to pretty much entail that the events of Crows & Dragons get compressed and amalgamated to a considerable degree. I wouldn't be surprised to see the whole sprawl compressed into a single season given considerable tracts of both books are pretty much unfilmable and largely without significance. I think it's pretty much a given that the show is going to diverge from the book narrative substantially moving forward and I wouldn't be surprised to see the show runners press to wrap the series up by season 6 or 7 simply because of the logistics of production, maintaining viewer interest as well as retaining the large cast of actors.

Is there a problem with maintaining viewer interest? I recall a talk at a conference I went to where it was mentioned that the traffic from torrents for s03e01 of Game of Thrones was actually noticeable with respect to all internet traffic. Although, I guess HBO might be pissed off that the actors/actresses are now important enough they have a say in things (like how one actress, probably Emilia Clarke/Daenarys the Boring refuses to do more nude scenes). But signs are pointing toward "adapting a long running book series" being the next big thing and I would imagine HBO is happy to be at the forefront of that (ASOIAF is actually fairly short, but you know what I mean).

And while I personally feel that dance and the other one were a complete waste of time and pure filler, I forget when the timeskip was supposed to end. So it is actually possible that Fatass And The Stolen Baby might be important to the plot as a whole.

And do you have a link to the article about the TV show diverging substantially? It would make sense, but that might be too close to "fanfiction" for ol' George to tolerate and I know there was a big stink about how he let the showrunners know the broad strokes of how it will end. So I would assume they would follow Martin (more or less) until they run out of Martin.

Originally Posted by Xercies

Also Crows has about 3 episodes worth of story in it but I can imagine dance taking about a season or a season and a half to tell so george has about three years to finish it up which I dont think is going to happen.

Depends how dense the new book is, but yeah, I also don't think he'll make it. But if he really is pumping out a book in two years (that is how long since Dance came out, right?) and I think it was mentioned he only has two (planned) books left, he might pull it off. Finish this, get it out, and have the final book released to coincide with the final season of the TV show.

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I do hope that God of Guilts, the latest Lincoln Lawyer installement by Michael Connelly, would have mass market copies sooner. The larger size version sold for RMB110, too expensive. Plus, I prefer size of pocket books.

And do you have a link to the article about the TV show diverging substantially? It would make sense, but that might be too close to "fanfiction" for ol' George to tolerate and I know there was a big stink about how he let the showrunners know the broad strokes of how it will end. So I would assume they would follow Martin (more or less) until they run out of Martin.

I heard talk they were going to use the prequel stories and characters to pad it out if Martin hasnt written the last book in time.

Depends how dense the new book is, but yeah, I also don't think he'll make it.

I can imagine it being pretty big cause he wants to put everything in it now. I do kind of miss the stremlined first book that just had a goal and ran through it but saying that the tv show is better with the sprawling books so maybe its a good thing.

But im am hesitant with the showrunners making things up have been burned by to many anime where the main writers just ruin it with filler episodes totallynot getting the characters

over halfway through Boneshaker and enjoying it, interesting premise and I like the whole concept of retrofitted city with sealed off tunnels and large funnels to bring fresh air into it. However, I do see the complaint someone else mentioned before how some steampunk stuff seems to be there just for the hell of it.

also the book reminds me of Dishonored a lot - some related concepts ideas (plague, rotters) and the world/setting feels very similar

I heard talk they were going to use the prequel stories and characters to pad it out if Martin hasnt written the last book in time.

The cast of actors already working on the show is too large for them to realistically consider pulling a hiatus and getting the majority of them back a couple of years down the line. Actors get paid by appearance, so from a production perspective they need to feature the actors in a certain number of episodes per season in order to make working on the show financially viable Vs pursuing other roles.

I took the plunge this week and started The Dark Tower series with The Gunslinger. I'm liking it so far. Everyone I've talked to about the books has told me the first one isn't that good, but to stick with it as the later books are fantastic. I'm enjoying the first one though. If they only get better, then I guess I'm in for a treat.

I've wanted to post something about Dark Tower below Tikey's post, but I didn't.
Then you came here and you're writing about it in exactly the same place where my post would go.
After reading almost whole Dark Tower I don't belive in coincidences.

BTW, I love how almost all other King's books are tied with Dark Tower. It was good move to read DT after reading the rest of his works.

I'm reading Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens. It's a short and acerbic work written during Mother Teresa's life on why she's not the wonderful person she's popularly believed to be.

Finished the Culture series by Iain M Banks recently (highly recommend!), now getting into the Amber series by Roger Zelazny (which I started reading years ago as it was recommended reading for Planescape Torment fans, but I hadn't gotten into it properly the first time around).

I really like the Culture books, especially Excession and Use of Weapons. It's a great shame he done went and died, there was certainly untapped potential still left in that series.

Now who's gonna write my utopian sci-fi space opera? His absence really is a gaping vacuum in the centre of sci-fi as far as I'm concerned. He did something very few others are doing, and he did it best.

Ive read Blackout, winner of 2011 Hugo award. Nothing really fucking happens in whole book but it is very well written and compelling to read. Basically action starts around 50 pages before the end. Still I need to read the second book.